Posts Tagged ‘Guest workers’

Each year, tens of thousands of immigrant “guestworkers” come to the United States on special employer-sponsored visas to work temporary jobs in landscaping, hotel housekeeping and other low-wage sectors. But for decades, these workers have beendemonized and scapegoated, accused of hurting “native” U.S. workers by driving down wages. At the same time, the immigrants themselves have spoken out about their poor wages and working conditions, and have even gone on strike and organized independent labor movements to demand the same rights and wages as that of their American counterparts. It seems the only people who like this system, in fact, are the bosses who rely on a surplus army of imported temporary labor, denied the labor protections and legal rights of citizens.

In 2011, the Department of Labor (DOL) issued major reforms to a flagship guestworker program known as H-2B, which funnels tens of thousands of migrants annually into low-wage jobs in workplaces from Florida hotel chains to crabmeat canneries. Business groups, predictably, sued to block the regulations—but last week, an appeals court finally put their arguments to rest.

The reforms, which the DOL based upon an assessment of wage rates and labor market conditions for U.S. workers, mandate pay high enough to maintain prevailing wages in sectors that recruit guestworkers, and thus sustain current working conditions. The wage rules are part of a package of guestworker program reforms proposed by the DOL, that has long been stalled by Congress and court challenges but, with this court victory, can finally be implemented.

However, Meredith Stewart, an attorney with the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), which represented the workers’ groups that joined the Labor Department in fighting the suit in court, points out that employers supported the previous, laxer regulations that made it easy to pay substandard wages. “It really wasn’t until the Department of Labor issued a wage rule that would lead to substantial increases for workers that employers decided to challenge their authority to issue any regulations for the program,” she tells Working In These Times. The new rules, she says, simply mandate that “to the extent that employers are going to employ foreign workers, those foreign workers and U.S. workers need to be treated equally and fairly.”

While the pending regulations would hardly be a comprehensive overhaul, they strengthen the meager existing H-2Bprotections by barring employers from paying H-2B workers so little as to undercut existing wage levels for non-visa workers who do “substantially the same work.” Essentially, the prevailing wage standard, set according to the Labor Department’s economic assessments, aims to preserve working conditions in a given sector by preventing employers from manipulating immigrants to cheapen labor costs. It also would block employers from unfairly cutting hours and from deducting transportation or equipment costs from workers’ pay. Employers would be required to disclose more information up front in the recruitment and hiring process, about job requirements and workers’ legal rights. The regulations also help shield workers from discrimination if they complain about mistreatment—a critical protection because they depend on their employer’s sponsorship for their U.S. visa authorization and are thus easily coerced into silence.

Most controversy over guestworkers stems from the popular misconception that immigrants are to blame for supposedly “stealing” jobs. In fact, migrants often work jobs that complement, rather than displace, the employment of U.S. workers. But even in the labor markets where the importation of guestworkers has resulted in declining labor conditions, the process isdriven primarily by the labor abuses and rampant exploitation of employers—thus all workers, native and immigrant, documented and undocumented, have an interest in equalizing labor rights across the board, to resist attempts by corporations to divide and exploit the workforce with impunity. To that end, the grassroots labor organizing among guestworkers highlights a shared labor struggle in a system that robs U.S. and immigrant workers alike of dignity. Several labor scandals, such as the recent case of seafood processing workers in the massive supply chain of Wal-Mart, have shed light on the common practice of underpaying H-2B immigrants. In a 2012 report by the National Guestworker Alliance (NGA) on abuses in guestworker programs, NGA co-founder Daniel Castellanos-Contreras recalled his experience of exploitation as an H-2B worker in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, lured to the U.S. from his native Peru on the promise of a decent hotel-industry job.

Instead of hiring [local] workers from the displaced and jobless African American community, he sent recruiters to hire us. At around $6.00 an hour, we were cheaper. As temporary workers, we were more exploitable. We were hostage to the debt in our home countries; we were terrified of deportation…

The report details various forms of mistreatment that guestworkers like Castellanos-Contreras have suffered, such as wage theft and labor trafficking. In an email to Working In These Times, Castellanos-Contreras says of the Third Circuit Court ruling, “The court has caught up with what thousands of guestworkers have been saying since Hurricane Katrina: to stop exploitation in guestworker programs, we need higher prevailing wages, and we need protections from employer retaliation to make sure that the rules of the program are enforced.”

The H-2B reforms still face legal roadblocks, however. Another, related set of H-2B rule changes has been held up by a preliminary injunction issued by a Florida court in a separate suit, brought by Bayou Lawn & Landscape Services, which might potentially lead to a conflicting ruling by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals—one more hurdle that has so far impeded full implementation. Outside the courts, conservative lawmakers stalled the implementation of the wage rules in 2012 by voting to block the required funding for the Labor Department to carry out the regulations. (The block was lifted in the 2014 budget legislation, which should clear the way for the new standards, according to the SPLC.) Meanwhile, tepid attempts in Congress to pass more comprehensive overhauls of both guestworker programs and the entire immigration system have foundered amid political gridlock.

Stewart says that, despite the incremental legal victories, “There’s still a long way to go to making these programs even remotely functional, from a worker advocates’ standpoint.”

On top of their demand for stronger wage standards, the fight will continue for more safeguards against abuses like fraud in the labor recruitment process, as well as protections for their right to organize. And progressive advocates for immigrant laborers ultimately want to move away from the precarious temporary labor of the current visa system–and toward an equitable immigration policy that provides genuinely equal employment opportunities and the ability to gain full citizenship. For now, though, the court’s affirmation of their basic right to fair pay marks a modest milestone in the migrants’ long journey.

This article was originally printed on Working In These Times on February 13, 2014. Reprinted with permission.

About the Author: Michelle Chen is a contributing editor at In These Times, a contributor to Working In These Times, and an editor at CultureStrike. She is also a co-producer of Asia Pacific Forum on Pacifica’s WBAI. Her work has appeared on Alternet, Colorlines.com, Ms., and The Nation, Newsday, and her old zine, cain.

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Last week, in a small victory for guest workers activists, the State Department announced that it had debarred guest workers recruiter Council for Educational Travel USA (CETUSA) from the J-1 cultural exchange guest worker visa program. CETUSA had provided student guestworkers to work in Hershey warehouses in Palmyra, Penn. As I reported last summer, these workers went out on strike with the help of local unions to protest being paid only $20-$40 per week after having pay deducted for high rent and other services.

“The State Department’s ban on CETUSA is a big win for the students, and a blow against the larger trend of labor recruiters and companies using guestworkers to hollow out industries and undercut wages and conditions all over America,” National Guest Worker Alliance (NGA) Director Saket Soni said. “Corporations like Hershey’s and labor recruiters like CETUSA have turned the J-1 cultural exchange program into the country’s largest guest worker program, and profited from captive workers earning low wage.”

The debarment of CETUSA is a small victory for NGA, as there are many other recruiters still operating in the J-1 guest worker visa program that abuse workers, according to the organization. Advocates say that in order to stop further abuses of guestworkers the J-1 program needs to be reformed to provide greater rights to guest workers and more oversight of recruiters and companies using guest workers.

“I hope this sends a clear message to other recruiters like CETUSA: we will NOT be your captive workers,” said Harika Duygu Ozer, an NGA member and former J-1 student worker at the Hershey’s plant from Turkey. “Now the State Department needs to make laws so that the next group of workers that are made captive by recruiters don’t have to risk being fired and deported or go on strike, just to get their basic rights respected.”

The State Department also announced that it will begin a review of how to restructure the oversight and will announce new regulations of the guest workers programs this summer. It’s unclear what the rules or regulations will be.

Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Rick Ruth, however, told The New York Times that the new rules will expand the list of occupations that cultural exchange guest workers would be barred from working, including “construction and roofing” and other hazardous industries. State Department officials also told the Times “they were also considering a ban on most factory and industrial jobs” for cultural exchange guest workers. The State Department also pledged to increase their staff overseeing the cultural exchange guest worker program by 15 from its current level of 40.

“The real question, though, is whether the State Department going to include real workers’ protections in the regulations—in particular, workers’ right to organize” says NGA Communications Director Stephen Boykewich. “What we found is that the ability of guest workers to organize without fear of intimidation is the most important thing necessary to prevent what we saw at Hershey.”

In an effort to pressure the State Department to crack down on more guestworkers who violate the program, the NGA is releasing a list this week of 10 companies that have abused guestworkers that they would like to see the State Department crack down on.

“Getting CETUSA debarred is an important short-term victory but a larger fight is just beginning,” says Boykewich.